Customer Service

Parent Cafe
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<p>I’m sure you all have your horror stories… or maybe some positive stories. Just thought I’d start a thread. This is the type of thing that everyone can relate to.</p>

<p>Bad service?</p>

<p>I give a company three strikes. You muck up once, I forgive you. Accidents happen. Twice, I have a sour taste in my mouth but will give you one more shot. You do it again, we don’t do business anymore. I’m as pleasant as can be. I deal with customers at work all the time. I know what it’s like to have people be rude to me so I’m never rude to someone when I call them for help. You catch more flies with honey then you do with vinegar!</p>

<p>I have Best Buy at one strike and Sears at three strikes. I’ve been proudly boycotting Sears for over a year now. </p>

<p>Best Buy I had issues with about three years ago when I ordered a TV. Had massive issues as it was out of stock even though their website said it was in stock in store and it had to be reordered as a delivery but somehow got charged two times for it on my credit card (the original order and the re-order). Finally wound up getting it resolved after about ten phone calls. I even got hung up on! I haven’t had any issues with them since but that sure had me mad. Wound up getting the TV about a week later then expected however the delivery guys were very nice. They carried it down a flight of stairs, helped me remove it from its packaging and lifted it up on its stand for me. </p>

<p>Sears, I bought a washer from them. They delivered it and hooked it up wrong. Complained and they didn’t care. Strike one. My dad had to come all the way up and fix it for me. They then refused to refund my delivery charges which were supposed to be free after mail in rebate. Strike two. Washer then broke a little over a year later and needed to be repaired. My credit card company said they would pay for the repairs but I had to send in a copy of my receipt. Sent the receipt and we realized that Sears put the wrong figures on the receipt and none of it matched what was actually billed to my card. Took multiple phone calls, several people couldn’t even find me in their computer, till I finally got someone who gave me a fax number and told me to fax my request for a corrected receipt. A few days later I got a new receipt e-mailed to me along with an apology. Apology too late, that was strike three. Lol. Guess who has bought plenty of stuff she would normally buy at Sears from other stores since? This girl. </p>

<p>Good service? I spoke to my cable company on the phone the other week. A very nice woman went through a list of all the channels I was getting (literally, she took the time to name off probably a hundred various channels with me, helped me remove a few channels that I never watch which lowered my bill by about 25 bucks and she also gave me a 15 dollar discount that they are currently offering to new subscribers (I think I had that originally but it had expired). One phone call saved me 40 bucks a month. Sweet!! I also get periodic letters from them saying something along the lines of “we are sorry that we had a blip in service this afternoon (which I wouldn’t know since I work anyway) as an apology we are giving you three months of HBO, you don’t have to call to cancel, and we’re giving you 10 dollars credit towards your next bill. Thank you for choosing us.” I remember when I was younger and our cable went out, my mom would call to complain and they would just say it will be back on soon we are working on it. I don’t even have to call and you’re giving me a discount? sweet!</p>

<p>Other good service, my electric company. This might sound weird but they have been great. They sent me an e-mail a few months ago telling me about a rebate program that they were doing for new appliances and that they were making it retroactive to June of 2009. I wound up getting a 75 dollar rebate on above mentioned washer, over a year after I purchased it. I also wound up getting 75 dollars back on a programmable thermostat which was also purchased over a year ago, and 6 dollars back on my new printer! Also, today I got home from work and they left a note on my door that they are going to be coming by this week during the day and trimming my trees for me. I’m sure that’s something they do so that the trees aren’t hitting their power lines, but I appreciate it none the less. I have a giant tree that has grown to hit my house and was thinking about paying someone to trim it this summer anyway, haha!</p>

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<p>Fendergirl, I follow the same three strikes rule, unless the muckup is really major. Bluefly is now on my permanent “I will not shop there” list for selling me a counterfeit purse, trying to intimidate posters on another board who talked about the bags in question, and refusing to credit me the shipping charges. I guess that whole sequence of events can be counted as “three strikes”. They lost a loyal customer over $7.</p>

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<p>Bunson, glad to know I’m not the only one exercising a boycott! It was quite funny at Christmas because my dad wanted all these Craftsmen tools. I handed his whole list over to my sister and said have fun shopping for dad! Lol! I was not happy when my boyfriend bought a grill this summer at Sears but I guess I can’t expect him to honor my boycott as they have never done him wrong. I still wish he bought the one we saw at Home Depot. lol!</p>

<p>I do like the people who work at my local Home Depot. I spend a LOT of time there so I pretty much know the place like the back of my hand but when I do have a question they are always so very helpful. They even printed me out a copy of my thermostat receipt from over a year ago for that rebate. I was amazed they could go back that far.</p>

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<p>Three strikes: Dell. Ugh, don’t know where to start … incompetent, incoherent, inconsiderate.</p>

<p>Gold stars to: Verizon, I’m juggling quite a few verizon lines and find phone support always courteous and helpful – even if they can’t solve an issue, they’ll stay on the line until I’m connected with someone who can help. Apple, more than once I’ve had out of warranty stuff fixed for free.</p>

<p>I boycott Wal-Mart because I think it represents much of what is wrong with the US economy, but that’s a discussion for another thread…</p>

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<p>I like Verizon too. They replaced a cell phone for only 50 dollars even though it was out of warranty and I didn’t purchase the insurance. When my new phone was delivered they said I could either mail back the broken one or take it to a store. I took it to a store and the girl got all of my contacts, photos, sounds, videos backed up and loaded them all onto the new phone for me (I had tried to do it but the phone was so broken that it took me minutes just to move one photo). It took her over an hour to manually transfer everything. She told me I could leave it with her and come back in an hour or so that way I didn’t have to wait. They also suggested I change to a different plan which gave me more services for 5 dollars less a month and made it retroactive back to my last billing.</p>

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<p>I will give TMobile a + rating. Their customer service has been good to me.</p>

<p>Fendergirl, I really really hope you don’t come back and have a bad report on your utility co.'s tree trimming practice. Maybe they do a better job in your state, but our regulatory commission has gotten involved in my state. I call them “butchers”. Here, they don’t “trim” trees, they mutilate them.</p>

<p>Agree w/ the Sears assessment. When I was growing up, my parents bought everything at Sears, right down to my Toughskins jeans that would (regretfully) never wash out. My mom is currently in appliance hell with her new fridge, stove, and washer/dryer from them, all of which have had multiple service calls in the first 6 months.</p>

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<p>My all-time favorite customer service is Costco. They print out receipts on purchases if I have lost the receipt & want warranty service or need the receipt for any reason. They are also very gracious about returns and refunds for ANY reason at all, no matter how long the item has been out of their store. They have even called my brother who returned literally about $1500+ in items there to be sure he was treated well when he did all his returns.</p>

<p>This is one of the reasons I try to make most of my large purchases at Costco–I know I will have NO HASSLES if I ever need to return the item.</p>

<p>Speaking of Sears–I have had mixed results with them. We bought a fridge from them in late Oct. It was delivered by a really nice guys who noted that it was NOT working properly & making a lot of noise because the motor was striking the plastic. They asked if I wanted the fridge serviced but I declined & said I wanted a new one that really worked properly. They noted it & got someone scheduled to deliver it on Sunday–Halloween! The new fridge worked properly & even kept food at the correct temp (unlike the broken one initially delivered). There was a tiny ding on the new fridge, but otherwise it was OK.</p>

<p>I called customer service to complain that the original order delivered a broken fridge & kept being shuffled from person to person to finally a machine that hung up. I called back and on the 3rd try, ended up speaking with someone who apologized and gave us a 10% credit off the price of the fridge & re-credited for $20 because they just took our old fridge to the curb for bulky pick up. In net, I’m somewhat OK with Sears because of the last contact, even tho it was a hassle to have to keep moving our food from fridge to fridge, not to mention worrying about how safe it was being kept since the temps were not low enough.</p>

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<p>How I wish we could boycott our health insurer - the vile, criminally incompetent Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield. I can feel my blood pressure spiking as I type. I have to give them three strikes per phone call because they need that many for even the simplest question. I am convinced that their customer service model was designed to discourage customers from calling, thereby keeping customers from receiving all the benefits to which they’re entitled. I believe this more firmly than I believe in Truth, Justice, and The American Way. If 2 million dollars fell into my lap tomorrow, I would happily spend every last penny taking them to court for deliberate screwing up. (Let me tell you how I really feel …)</p>

<p>Good telephone customer service: I’ve had great luck with Coldwater Creek, Christopher and Banks, Hilton Hotels, and - always superbly professional and pleasant - L.L. Bean.</p>

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<p>sry, I’ll cross my fingers that it turns out okay. My tree is huge. I hear it hitting my house when it’s windy and I know the other side is hanging right over the power lines. Knowing my luck they will only trim half of it, lol!! They did leave a brochure in regards to what they will be doing. If they muck it up I’ll just take it down. I hate that tree anyway. It’s the one that broke my sewer line! I had another tree chopped down a couple months ago. It was half dead (got struck by lightening I think). Some random guy with a tree cutting business was driving past my house and saw it, and left a business card taped to my front door. Took it down for like a hundred bucks. Made my day to have that eye sore out of my back yard!</p>

<p>Frazzled, I work for an insurance company and I hear that a lot from our customers in regards to the blues. A friend of mine had to call them the other day and he said it took him four calls to get his question answered. (I just hope that our customers don’t feel the same about our customer service department, lol… watch my company show up in this post!)</p>

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<p>Not sure if this applies to this thread, but I have but one request (to start with) when I enter a store. I would like an employee to make eye contact with me and say “hello”!
A really good one might say “hello, if you need any help please let me know”!
A really busy one might say “Hello, I’ll be with you in just a minute!”
Seriously, this is the bare minimum of any employee anywhere working with the general public. What happened to friendliness? I will have to give kudos to Coldwater Creek…and a recent Comfort Suites I stayed in. Really friendly folks!</p>

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<p>I have heard good things about Zappos too. Have you guys heard about their practices?</p>

<p>[Why</a> Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit–And You Should Too - Bill Taylor - Harvard Business Review](<a href=“http://blogs.hbr.org/taylor/2008/05/why_zappos_pays_new_employees.html]Why”>Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit–And You Should Too)</p>

<p>iloved, I agree, to an extent. I like hello’s and may i help you. that being said, I do not like being stalked throughout the store and asked if you can help me with every single minute little thing, lol.</p>

<p>For that reason, I don’t like Sleepy’s. I’m sure they are all different but I went to one once and they stalked us thought the store and when we finally did talk to someone they were very rude. I went to another sleepys with a friend and they made us wait 45 minutes before even acknowledging that we were in the store. they also refused to rectify the problem that my friend was having with his recent purchase. we only waited around because he had an issue and it wound up being for nothing! One store doesn’t leave us alone and another store won’t help!!</p>

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<p>I work for a physical therapy clinic. I had one of our intake coordinators (who are responsible for a lot of the billing) tell me that she hates calling insurance companies because they are so difficult. She said some of those companies are hard to deal with so you’ll give up…</p>

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<p>We have a guy at our local WalMart who greets you with “Welcome to WAAAAAAAAAAAALmart!” and as you leave “Thanks for shopping at WAAAAAAAAALLLmart!” He’s an older guy… sometimes he’s funny, but sometimes it’s annoying.</p>

<p>On the other side of things, our receptionist was on the phone with a kid yesterday. Apparently this kid told her to shut up and then he hung up on her.</p>

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<p>I hate Chico’s because of the way the saleswomen fasten themselves to you like a barnacle while you’re picking stuff out and then hover just outside the dressing room - “How’s that? Need another size? Let’s see it - oh, I LOOOVE the color!!! You really should get two. What about accessories?” The last time (and it will be the last time) I was there I had to practically sneak out of the store because the clerk was working so damn hard to forge a bond with me. Maybe there’s such a thing as too much customer service.</p>

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<p>I was the squeaky wheel with my BCBS in our state, so much so that they assigned a person to me, gave me her office direct line & e-mail. When she retired, they assigned me someone new, they gave me her replacement’s contact info. After she retired, they gave me the contact info for the head of customer service & he always responds to my requests and questions. I am now one of the few people I know who actually gets answers from BCBS! It only took a few years of aggravation a decade ago!</p>

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<p>One thing that gets me is how people have no manners. Like for example, saying please and thank you. I deal with customers all the time at work. One thing required of us, doesn’t matter what department you are in, if you are speaking to a customer you HAVE to say please and thank you. If someone happens to overhear you NOT saying please and thank you, you WILL hear about it. It’s just called being courteous.</p>

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<p>HIMom, I suspect that my file has a special sticker on it indicating that I’m an, um, excitable customer. I’m impressed that you were able to squeak enough to get an actual individual assigned to you. During one of my many go-rounds with BCBS I asked the rep for her name so that I could include it in a letter of protest - she would only give me her first name. Her supervisor would only give me her first name. Her supervisor told me that the only last name I could have for my complaint, out of the entire company, was the CEO’s (where the letter was to be sent - no last names for VP of Operations or Customer Service).</p>

<p>One of my most ridiculous BCBS calls - I worked my way up to supervisor level when my 20 y/o d was told at a drug store (900 miles away) that she wasn’t covered under our insurance. And of course she was. After 45 minutes of being on hold, with intermittent snippy comments from the supervisor, I hung up. She actually called me back and reprimanded me for being so impatient with her that I would think of hanging up while she was trying to help me. You know how unreasonable it is to expect to get something you’ve paid dearly for after only 45 minutes. :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>Slightly off topic, Costco and probably other stores have this nifty little electronic tool that tells them if a diamond is really a diamond? So if you are returning diamond jewelry, they can tell if you are bringing back the real thing or a CZ fake. How cool is that? I was afraid to take back the earings my DH gave me for Chistmas (long back-story… duplicate earings) and they went zip-zap-here’s your credit card money back.</p>

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<p>Frazzled - Some companies are really weird about last names due to the safety of their employees, not just to make you mad. Some actually prohibit it. Our customer service reps are allowed to but not required… To give you some background on that… Some customer service person in our company apparently had a customer look her up by her first and last name in the phone book and send a threat to her… She never gave her last name again after that. If you mail a complaint with the first name they can look up the last name of the person that you spoke to in the computer, everything is documented. My position at work requires me to be licensed in all 50 states, so my whole name is on practically every paper I mail someone. I just hope that they are trusting with my information and I keep myself super private on facebook. :). </p>

<p>My guess is that’s why they wouldn’t give you any last names other then the CEO… it’s not really something you think about when you call a place but it happens. This world can be awful.</p>

<p>That is crazy regarding the 45 minute with the supervisor. I would have hung up too! :(</p>

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<p>I’m complaining to the Insurance Comm. </p>

<p>Local Regence BC/BS online, says that I’m outside their service zone and refuses to give me a rate card and service option. Making them spend some money in labor and postage to send me their info pack, even though my office is across the street from their HQ.</p>

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<p>Five hours later AT&T finally agrees to send me a new blackberry under warranty. the trackball has a known problem where after time it won’t scroll down. First customer service
Person screens me before hand off to warranty. Warranty guy insists I spend hours upgrading my software because a bad email might have caused the problem! You know the email that causes the trackball to scroll left right and up but not down. Yeah that one. They are on strike two with me and may not get to three as I may strikeout first due to high blood pressure.</p>